Closing the Pender Harbour landfill and converting it to a transfer station seems inevitable, as almost every director on the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) board has said they will vote to close the dump.
No official vote was taken at the Sept. 24 board meeting in Pender Harbour, but in a rare occurrence, directors stated how they plan to vote after a question from the gallery.
The SCRD is weighing its options for when the Pender Harbour landfill is full and must either be closed or expanded within two years. If the landfill closes, garbage would then be shipped to the Sechelt landfill.
The directors weighed in on the benefits they saw in a transfer station over expanding the landfill, including: not increasing the virgin footprint of the Pender Harbour landfill and avoiding the possibility of more leachate entering the aquifer, cheaper operating and capital costs and the fact that the Sechelt landfill is set to have a methane gas capture system installed, which will lower greenhouse gasses.
"I think the evidence is pretty obvious. You've got to transfer. You really do," said Gibsons Mayor Barry Janyk.
Garry Nohr, director for Halfmoon Bay, said the move would help ease the tax burden on Pender Harbour residents. The landfill is currently 45 per cent funded by its own tipping fees. The rest comes from a tipping fee surplus at the Sechelt landfill.
"I think the people of Pender Harbour have to realize that if they were to take this on themselves, what an extra cost it would be to them as taxpayers," Nohr said.
Directors Lorne Lewis, Donna Shugar, Darren Inkster and Lee Turnbull each said they preferred the transfer station.
Eric Graham, director for Pender Harbour/Egmont, reiterated previous statements that he would vote as his constituents wanted him to.
"I would like to see whatever Area A wants," he said. "Give everyone the facts, have a referendum and whatever the people of Area A decide to do is what I will put to the board as a recommendation."
In some informal polling done by the SCRD through surveys in June and July, 84 per cent of the 169 responses stated a preference to keep the landfill open.
At a public information meeting on the issue in June, the prevailing opinion from residents was to expand the landfill and encourage more recycling to further extend its life. Dion Whyte, manager of sustainable services for the SCRD, said he believes there has been some turnaround in public opinion since that time as people have learned more about the transfer option.
Under the transfer option, residents will see no change to the way they drop off their garbage and there will be no change to staffing once the needed infrastructure for a transfer station is installed.
Whyte said there is no set timeline for a decision on the landfill to be made.
